Diaper blowout #3 this week!

Okay. I am fed up with this! What's the deal?!?! I mean thank goodness for OxyClean. It does wonders for the stained outfits. I've decided that she's too big for #3's. I'm switching her to #4's. It wasn't even that much poo. Just a bit, but it all leaked out the back. She even went a whole bunch this morning. It's the diapers too. No more Babies R Us/Toys R Us brand for us. Too bad we still have a ton. I guess ideally I should be more vigilant with E.C., but this mommy's been a bit tired/lazy lately.

So I gave her the sippy today for the 1st time. She just chews on it. How am I supposed to teach her to suck on it? Hmmmmm...

Daddy is deep sea fishing today. Hopefully he brings home lots of fresh fish and fresh shrimp for us to devour! Mommy would've loved to go, but Hannah needs taking care of. Mommy just looks forward to the fresh seafood.

Somehow him going fishing...and me being at home nurturing the baby, makes me feel slightly "hunter-gatherer-ish" - like our family is regressing into a more primitive societal state... anyways...

I'm still doing my best to fight off the bug - it hasn't gone full-blown on me. Lots of fluids and rest. Sick mommies aren't very good or fun mommies. I just think of Hannah's snot/mucus with saturated viral loads, and I've been super vigilant about hand washing and disinfecting. It's like I'm in the lab again.

Baby Bullies?

We had some friends over today, and Hannah had a playmate about her age (only about a week apart). Both 6-month-old girls were sitting facing each other and cooing and squirming. All of a sudden, Hannah ended up head-butting Em. Through the course of sitting while facing each other, Hannah also ended up whacking her playmate with the stuffed monkey they were "sharing". Though they're the same age practically, Hannah's much larger and her mass causes more force in all of her motions. I just hope that she doesn't end up inadvertently or intentionally ever bullying other kids.

When we get together with another friend whose son is about 10 months old, he ends up head-butting Hannah while he's crawling around and trying to play with her. He also ends up taking whatever toy that she's playing with at the time, which is what Hannah did to her playmate today.

Of course none of it is malicious. All of this is just attempts at moving around and learning to grab things, and the babies really aren't even "playing together" persay. It's sorta funny/cute to observe for now, but it also makes me wonder about her future interactions with her peers. Don't want her to be a bully but also don't want her to be bullied. What's a parent to do? I probably need to read more books or something, since up till now, I haven't read any books about child interactions and issues. And of course I don't really remember my child development class from college either. But I know this is all normal stuff that's a part of development.

Oh...she had another blow out today! YUK! I couldn't believe it! It was another day of refusing to poo in the morning and early afternoon. So by evening she's sitting there playing, and I hear her let her bowels loose. It went everywhere - all the way up her back, all over her onesie, to the overalls. I blame it on the diapers. These disposables just aren't very good - or this particular batch. We've used the brand (Especially for Baby Supreme) before and we really liked them, but the glue used in manufacturing got everywhere in this batch and has made them stiff and unabsorbent.

I think I am getting the bug that Hannah and DH have. I'm starting to get a slightly runny nose.

Look-Alike Meter

I tried this out a bunch of times with different photos. It's a cool facial recognition program. The first time it said Hannah looked like me more by 7%. And then I loaded different pics of us, and it says it's perfect a 50-50%. Then it was Isaac by 3%. Then I loaded the 1st pics and it was me by 10%. The website has all sorts of other matching facial recognition things including morphing. I've spent way too much time on it playing around. Fun stuff. Thanks for the link Kensie!









What's the deal here? Oprah shows up in both. I think that's funny.

Sickness is spreading

So today DH is sick (sore throat, congestion & body aches)...and Hannah's gotten worse. I wonder if she too has a sore throat. Who can tell? It's not like she can tell us. She looks bad though. She has puffy eyes with bags under them and her nose is drippy. The clear drippy is now sometimes cloudy and becoming tinted with color. They are both in bed now as I post (have been in bed for awhile as I've continued with house chores & my wind-down time). They both need lots of rest. I hope I don't come down with whatever it is. My body has been feeling achy, but that's been an ongoing postpartum thing. I try to rest as much as possible in general and drink lots of fluids, so hopefully my immune system is up for the fight.

Hannah threw up all over the bed this afternoon. Poor thing can't breathe well b/c she's congested. She tries to nurse, but her nose only has partial ability to breathe. She'd fall asleep and then wake up due to not being able to breathe if she changed her sleeping position. So after an exhausting time of putting her down to sleep, I thought she was down. Then she cried for a bit, and then was quiet. Then she cried a bit again...nothing way too out of the ordinary, so I let her CIO. I checked on her after it was silent, and she was sleeping. Later on, when I checked on her again near the end of her nap, and I noticed a funny smell. She'd thrown up everywhere, and I guess I hadn't noticed earlier! It was all over the bed, on her outfit, in her hair. I felt totally bad and wondered it she'd thrown up when CIO. She's only thrown up one other time while we let her CIO and that was last month, and I didn't let her CIO after that very much. I felt so bad, and just babied her after that, holding her close and cuddling with her.

I guess it's a time for lots of messy firsts. Yesterday she had her first official blow-out since her 1st or 2nd week of life. The blow-out in that 1st month was a tiny leak and because we were trying some diaper samples - White Cloud, and they weren't very good. Yesterday, she didn't poo in the morning or even later on when I took her to the toilet. In the afternoon, I left her in the disposables, and just let her crawl around. Then I guess due to fact she was on her belly crawling around, and the mass of the poo, it squished out the front. Yuk!

So yesterday I started disinfecting all her toys, and today I've continued disinfecting toys and other Hannah touched and touchable stuff around the house. I've washed all of the covers on the car seat, the jumperoo, the rocking seat, the baby carrier etc. Still a lot more to disinfect. I'm upping my normal vigilance to "code red" and will probably disinfect/wash everything again throughout and after the sickness.

So she's gotten better at crawling just in the last week. Here's a video of her from Saturday.

Poor Stuffed Nose

She's sick. I think she caught a bug from a friend that we visited on Friday. It developed over Saturday night (restless night for the whole family b/c of Hannah), and she was totally drippy from the nose on Sunday. Sunday night, the congestion started getting progressively worse. She doesn't like it when I suck her nose with the bulb - who would? But I try to show her the bulb, and let her touch it. Then she's more calm and will let me stick it in her nose to clear out the mucus.

I have some more posts that I started from last week and never finished...so I need to post those, but I'll leave them as the date that I started the post.

Shoes & Feet

Hannah's not used to wearing shoes on her feet. I usually don't bother because either they don't stay on, or they're a bit binding. But the little shoes for little girls are so cute! And she was given some really cute ones. I put shoes on her the past few days.

She's started the 'eating her feet' thing while sitting the past few weeks. And so with the shoes, she likes to eat them too, whether they're on or off. She started grabbing her feet around 5 months while on her back and feet in the air. Then she started wanting to get them closer to her mouth while laying on her back, and sucking or whatever with them.

Well, when I put these shoes on her, she bent forward and tried to eat them. She did this for awhile, but then got frustrated when she couldn't get them completely into her mouth. (This was Thursday).



She also been playing around with her tongue and exploring. She consciously sticks it out more often than before and also likes to explore the kinds of sounds she can make - making raspberries or the "phhhhbt" sound or other concoctions- however one would like to describe it.

















These videos are of her making noises and grabbing her toes while on her back (on the left), and of her sticking her tongue out and then trying to eat her shoes while sitting (on the right).

Stroller Walks

Hannah loves to go outdoors. When she was younger and got fussy, DH would take her outdoors, and she'd calm down. She likes to look around and take in the new sights and sounds. She's always chill when we take her out. She doesn't fuss, vocalize or anything. She just enjoys it.

Here's photos from a stroller walk last week (a bit over 6 mos old) and also from her 1st stroller walk at 1 month. Look how she's grown!










On one of the walks last week, a ladybug landed on the stroller. It crawled on the stroller, flew around, crawled on Hannah. It was pretty neat.

Happy Hannah - laughing

Hannah is such a cheerful child. She's always smiling and rather easy to entertain. She started laughing in June (the week that we were preparing to move). Here's a video of her 1st few laughs.

1st baseball game

Hannah attended her 1st baseball game last night - the Hooks. She even had her 1st twizzler (courtesy of daddy) - not consumed of course. She had a nice nap before we got there and then stayed up waaay past her bedtime. We went with friends and all their kids. Dollar hot dogs, dollar drinks, peanuts, candy - it was a ball game - fun stuff for kids to do. Our little friend Ryan got hit by a homerun ball, but he got to keep the ball & even got a baseball cap. We all had a good time, and the Hooks won.

First Word?

When I was changing Hannah this morning and buttoning up her outfit, I could swear I heard her say her first word. She said "bao" very clear, precise and by itself. Not "bao, bao, bao" or "ba, ba, ba" over and over like her coos and babbles, but "bao" singly and clearly with tones, nothing else afterwards. "Bao" is to hold or hug in Mandarin Chinese. It seemed to be said with the intent to be picked up. She already reaches up with her arms when I reach out to pick her up, and the word seemed to be very clearly said in conjunction with the action. Hmmmm... so far the occurence hasn't been repeated yet. I know, I know... language development takes awhile. But there are things we as adults can do to help them progress and to be aware of delays.

Fun with a mirror

The silly girl was trying to eat her own reflection. She kept on bumping into the mirror with her head repeatedly. She's never tried interacting with her own reflection before. Usually she laughs & is entertained or is curious & just stares.






This is Hannah & me on this Sunday afternoon after church. The bishop made an announcement today at the start of church reminding us to be prepared. He said we should have evacuation plans: told us who & when to call if we don't have anywhere we can go/stay for evacuation, what to do & expect if hurricane Dean hits, and to contact those under our stewardship to inform them of these issues. It was strange for me to sit there with Hannah (cooing & squirming) between me & DH on the pew listening to these warnings.

Having Hannah gives me a different perspective on preparation. My mind started making lists. We needed to add Hannah items to our 72-hr kits and preparation. What do I need to take with us to make sure Hannah is a-ok? A backup supply of powdered formula (though H is breastfed) just in case something bad happens to me or my supply, medicines & clothes for her, how to transport her if we have no car and need to be on foot or bike? Flooding, the roof being blown off...do we need to change the location of where we put stuff in our home? Or is it hopeless when Mother Nature strikes b/c it's so random?

Living where we live now, it's inevitable that hurricanes are threats & we need to be prepared. All these disaster and worst-case scenarios ran through my mind. We can learn from all that has happened in the past few years around the world. Most important is our lives...but what about our sentimentals? Should I leave them with my parents and not have them where we live? But then a tornado could hit where my parents live. What about my violin? other valuable items?(Yes, we do have renters insurance with fire, flood, & hurricane coverage.) It's all just "stuff" anyways right? But some of it is more irreplaceable than others. Should I just digitize all of our important paperwk, info, photos, memories, and store them in a portable hard drive that we can just grab and go? What's truly essential? What's important? Do we evacuate with only essentials? yada yada...

Saturday, DH & I had already discussed hurricane evacuation preparations, where we would go and when we would leave if needed. We already have back-up gasoline and water. We need to pack "just-in-case" bags for evacuation at any time (per the bishop's advice today). Our "nice" car is still in the shop awaiting some maintenance parts - no huge problems. It has full coverage though, so...

Lots of things to think about...

But we just ended up having a nice Sunday evening with friends, eating dessert & playing games (Carcassone).

She's starting to crawl

Hannah started to crawl yesterday. It's not the super-fast get from point A to point B crawl, but it's a start. She was very motivated to grab the laptop cord and so she not only scooted towards it, it was a push/drag herself across the floor action. Her mid-section is not way above the ground yet b/c i don't think her arms are that strong, but she's trying. I'm sure it'll just be like when she figured out how to roll over a month or so ago. The first time she rolled over, she was stretching (or trying to look for nourishment), and she accidentally rolled. She was fascinated with her new discovery and just kept at it daily, and within the week she was actively rolling. So I think that's how her crawling will be too. We started shooting this video after she had already executed her successful crawl.

Today she was very motivated to grab my glasses that I had placed on the blanket since I was laying down next to her. She crawled over on her tummy and intently continued to crawl towards them as I moved them farther away each time.

Like other babies at this stage, she likes cords, glasses, and other things that we as adults use often. She wants to grab for whatever it is that we're using or doing. I try to distract her by giving her own toys to her, but if she has her mind set on something we're using, she's not as easily distracted as when she was a few weeks younger than now. She's likes the tags on toys and other items and enjoys sucking/chewing on them.

Blue Sleeper Gown

So...just a bit Maggie-ish? no?

Another Early Morning

I think Hannah is going to turn me into an early bird by necessity and subjection. Once again I couldn't get back to sleep after the early morning feeding. Hmmmm. It's Saturday, and I can't sleep in. Unheard of! (I've been fighting the early bird tag that can develop with motherhood. Until now, I've done quite well with going back to sleep and sleeping in.)

So last night we did end up seeing the Simpsons movie at the theater. We were mildly entertained and did laugh a bunch, but overall we were disappointed. The movie itself also mocks those that pay to see something that they could see for free on TV. Note taken.

We put Hannah in her blue sleeper gown before we went, and we decided with the sleeper and the hair that sticks straight up all over her head, she sorta resembles Maggie - but without the pacifier and without the crawling. She slept for about the first half of the movie, but then woke up and sorta watched the movie with us. She was vocalizing a lot and so we had to take her out to the side hall area a few times. She's done rather well in going to movies with us. The last movie was Harry Potter, and she screamed at the beginning during previews b/c the sound was too high and it startled her. We've taken her to a lot of movies with us, mainly when she was between 2-4 months, and she did well - sleeping through most of them. (that was when the sound didn't bother her.)


(This is just one photo for now. I'm going to replace it with a collage. That'll be later b/c I've already spent too much time downloading a month's worth of photos from the camera this morning.)

We are going to take advantage of tax free shopping weekend again today. Yesterday I only ended up buying stuff at Children's Place for Hannah (we had a $10 off $30 purchase coupon to use up). The rest of the time was exploring what was available and corralling the kids (I went shopping with my friend who has 3 kids.) Today hopefully I can get grown-up clothes for me and DH. It'll be our Saturday family outing. Good thing he can tolerate shopping with us.

An Early Morning

So she's waking up every 3-4 hours at night again. We fed her lots of solids before bed, but alas... it must be the 6-month growth spurt, or teething, or the 6-month something or the other. Her waking cries have gone from fussy to screeches. We started putting her down around 7:30pm last night, she fell asleep at 8pm. Woke up around 10:30pm/11pm. DH tried to soothe her, pick-up/put-down (which usually works), but it just made her crying worse. We tried letting her cry it out and back to sleep. This night we watched more carefully because the last time we let her cry it out (after she was fed, comforted etc.), she threw up all over the place. So I eventually nursed her to sleep. She was up again around 1:30am/2am-ish (after I had only been asleep for over an hour). Her screeches dragged me from my soothing dreamland of sleep. I tried to ignore her, but eventually I was dragged out of bed to comfort her & nurse her back to sleep; where afterwards, I crawl back into my bed, and collapse back into sleep. Up again at 5am-ish. This felt like a few months ago...why is she going backwards? Where's my baby that can put herself to sleep? After feeding her, she proceeded to play in her bed, rolling around and cooing until 5:45am. Why was she wide awake? She usually falls back to sleep so easily. But I guess baby sleep is just not consistent all the time. They change so much monthly, weekly, daily...

For some crazy reason, for the person that sleeps like a brick, I could not fall back asleep (though believe me I tried), and so I've been up since 5am. That's really early for this night-owl. Surprisingly I'm not tired. I was just super hungry. I had breakfast with DH (a very rare event nowadays), even watched CNN, CNBC, Today Show, the Weather Channel (wondering why we barely got any rain, though Erin was supposed to hit us. It hit other areas of TX.) So that's what early mornings are like for the rest of the human population.

Anyways. I'm looking forward to Tax Free Weekend for us Texans. Going shopping today - diapers, clothes, shoes... Hannah's growing so quickly, I dunno if I want to get her many clothes... She still has some to grow into. We'll see what's out there. The only thing I really need is new pants. The benefits of breastfeeding - I've been fitting into pre-preg clothes and even needing smaller ones. YAY!

'Homemade' Photos

I need to post more photos.

These are photos I took. We decided against getting them at CVS/Walgreens/[insert retail store here] because they look horrible (they couldn't get a good shot of Hannah - she wouldn't sit still on the uncomfortable stool) and are overpriced for 2 photos. Making them myself, I could take a ton of Hannah, pick the good ones, and crop them down. Then you just put 6 to a 4x6 sheet and print it for a couple of nickles or dimes at [cheap 1-hr photo store (Walmart for us)] and they turn out sooo much better!

We're going to visit my grandma in Taiwan for her 80th B-day (in Sept). My mom & aunties are going too. It'll be fun! I'm really looking forward to it. It's too bad that daddy has to work so he can't come with us, but we're glad he's working hard to take care of us!

I haven't been back to Taiwan since the mish - that's a long time. We had to expedite both of our passports. For baby b/c I kept on forgetting to get her one. Mine b/c it expires within 6 months after our travel date, so I needed a new one that had a much later expiry. And since so much has happened during the 1st half of 2007, I didn't think to prepare for our trip till after we moved. It all worked out though because my aunt R applied for her passport 'non-expedited' months ago and still hasn't gotten it. We got our passports express mail - super quick around 2-2.5 weeks from applying for them. I guess you get what you pay for.

Figuring things out

Hannah doesn't crawl - yet. She attempts to, but it's very uncoordinated. She pushes off with her "powerful" hind legs, scoots forward, her butt high up in the air, but her "average" arms will be pinned under her (by her weight), pressing her face into the ground. Then she vocally objects to the uncomfortable position. She'll push up with her arms, end up in a sideways pike position, and rolling over or something. The coordination will come I suppose. Last night, we (as her parents) were discussing her "attempts at crawl-like movements" and decided that her massive weight is impeding her. She's too heavy for the existing power in her arms to support successful crawling at this time.

She's finally figured out how to pull the string on this monkey toy (that was given to her at birth) and make it vibrate. I'd say its one of her favorite toys because it's the one she's had the longest. It's small, colorful, portable, convenient to attach to the car seat and stuff into the diaper bag.

I'm slowly figuring out how to make things fit & function correctly (like the jumperoo video on the side bar). Which worked when I first added it, but I haven't been able to get it to load on subsequent attempts after changing the dimensions.
...okay now it works. good.

Curious Hannah

So she's been rolling around the living room, exploring, and satisfying her curiosity. Today she rolled over to the box fan that we set up to circulate the air in the living/dining area (since there's no overhead fan or wiring capacity for it) and decided to stick her little tiny finger into the slots. It made this buzzing/rapid pth-pth-pth sound, and she was absolutely fascinated. I guess it didn't hurt her, just tickled her finger, and she liked it a lot. I heard the noise and wondered what it was. I didn't flip out, but just removed her from the area while she was laughing and smiling at me. I told Ize when he got home from work. Apparently she had discovered this "finger in the fan" phenomenon a few days earlier, but he had conveniently neglected to tell me about it.

She also likes "Daddy's chair". It's his favorite reading/sitting chair which I just slipcovered temporarily with a large piece of toile upholstery fabric. She will roll over to it and under it. Sometimes she sucks on the legs when I'm not paying attention (I try to keep her from doing that too much), other times she pulls out the threads of the unfinished fabric. I had wondered what all the cream and black threads on the carpet were. DH mentioned it, and we figured it out.

Hannah also loves the toilet paper roll in the bathroom. Whenever she's sitting on the potty, even if she really needs to poo or pee, she gets distracted by the toilet paper roll. She reaches over and rolls it around and around both ways. Since she doesn't have extremely fine motor control she just whacks at it with her hand and all fingers outstretched with this arm flap motion. She flaps her arm up and down when nursing and laying down on the ground too.

She's become much more vocal within the past month. She started vocalizing loud screeches and "ahh"s and "dah, dah, dah, dah, dah"s over and over. She rolls around and makes sounds. She'll vocalize when she needs to go poo, but it's been hard for me to distinguish from if it's a regular screeching for screeching sake, or if she's trying to communicate. So I've missed a couple of poos the past few days, and she's gone in the diaper.

Eventually I'll get around to adding photos to the posts, but for now, I'm just documenting because they're not uploaded from the camera yet.

Lack of portrait venues

We went to JCP Portraits today for Hannah's 6-month photos. We decided to go for a green theme with white background. We were tired of floating heads amongst a black background (mainly b/c I liked it so much before, but now we have too many of those.) The photographer was not bad. I think we got some good shots of Hannah and of the family. Hannah was really responsive and had super cute expressions.

Although the shots were better than some of Hannah's previous month photo-shoots overall, DH & I weren't estatic about the check-out experience we had at this JCP's, and they seemed anal about when we could pick-up portraits. I am disappointed that this is practically the only choice of portrait venues we have. There is no Target Photo Studio (not within 100 miles), nor does the Wal-Mart in town have a portrait studio! I haven't checked all of the Wal-Marts around, but I've never like Wal-Mart portraits much. The closest Picture People is in Houston. Sears portraits...well, we've never gone to them. I haven't looked into private portrait studios b/c I just want a simple get in-get out reliable chain. The funny thing is that I think theoretically we've moved to a location that's supposed to be more "metropolitan" and definitely "more touristy" than the last place we lived. I rather liked the new Super Target in the last place we lived. It was nice, close, and quick to get portraits.

10-hr stretch

She slept for 10 hours straight without needing to nurse last night! She woke up maybe once, and cried out a bit, but quickly fell asleep. This is the longest she's EVER slept through the night, ever! Before this, it was maybe 7 hours tops without waking, and 8 hours tops without feeding.

DH "stuffed" her full of cereal (1-tbsp) and carrots (1-tbsp) before bedtime last night, and then she also nursed, so I guess she had a pretty full tummy. Eating solids is not her favorite thing to do. But I was surprised at how much she ate yesterday evening. It's the most she's had in solids at one sitting.

This morning, I could see some orange (carrots) and even cereal in her poo. I remember being told at the pediatrician's office that she would go through periods of lots of poo and then no poo. Hannah has never really gone through a "no poo" phase (not over a day), because when she doesn't poo, then the next day she has a TON of poo. But that has not happened very often, that I can recall. She's pretty regular. I guess she just doesn't use up all of what she takes in.

She's pretty chubby and her folds...oh, they're so difficult to clean. She's quite active, but not a hyper, high-strung baby. She's very mellow overall. Hopefully she'll start burning more calories. She rolls everywhere now, but hasn't started to crawl. She loves to stand and of course jump in her jumperoo (though for a few days upon 1st returning from FM last week, she didn't like the jumperoo).

So she's been sleeping rather well all day. The fire marshalls came for an inspection today, and the LOUD BEEPING of the smoke detector testing woke her up. I'm thinking we'll get in 3 good solid naps today. Sleep begets sleep.

Simpsonized

So here's our family Simpsonized.

All the Simponized babies seem to look the same, so it doesn't really resemble Hannah, but one gets the picture.

Ize really likes watching the Simpsons. Though we haven't watched the movie yet. We've decided it's a rental.

Why won't she sleep?

Her sleep has been way off, and she hasn't been sleeping like she normally does after the 4-hour nap on Friday. She fights sleep though she's tired. She cries, fusses, or wakes up screaming throughout the night. I hope this normalizes soon. She goes to bed much later, wakes up, etc. Just not the normal stuff.

Post-Immunization Effects

After the long doctor's visit, Hannah crashed as soon as I put her in the car. I wanted to run about some more and get stuff done (like grocery shopping), but I felt that her napping was more important. She had already been up for 2.5 hours from the time I woke her up to take her to the check-up, so we headed home.

She barely stirred as I transferred her from the car seat to her bed. Then she proceeded to sleep for a total of 4 hours from when she first crashed! There were bits of waking with cries in-between, but she would fall back into sleep quickly. That's a pretty long nap for her. Afterwards she was as happy as can be. She played and hung out with mommy & daddy.

I thought I could get away without Tylenol this time because Hannah seemed to be doing well. Alas, I was mistaken. We got her ready for bed and put her down for the night, but she kept on waking up every 20-30 minutes screaming. Finally between 10:30-11pm, when I was trying to get her back to sleep, I realized she was burning up. She hadn't been that hot previously. We immediately gave her Infant's Tylenol. We took her temperature, and it was basically 101 F. We kept her up for a bit and her temp eventually came down, but it was a rather fitful night for all of us. I was dead this morning, and DH wasn't much better off because he had to be up early (for a Saturday) to work with Habitat for Humanity.

6 month check-up

The stats are in! Hannah has been officially weighed and measured. She weighs a whopping 20 lbs 7 oz, has a head measurement of 17.5 in, and length of 26 inches. Her length is above the 50th percentile, but the rest is off the charts. She's happy and healthy with lots of chubby baby folds.


She got her immunizations today, 5 shots and the oral rotateq. The needles they used today looked super vicious, about 2.5-3 inches long and it seemed a millimeter in diameter?! (The nurse probably felt like she had to use longer needles to get through all of Hannah's chubbiness into the muscle.) As usual, it took her a few seconds to register that she got stabbed before she started crying. Though since she's discovered her voice as of the past few weeks, high pitched screaming ensued (instead of the usual light crying that subsides just as quickly as it starts). She still doesn't do well with swallowing oral medications. We have to give them drop by drop or else she spits it all out. I always wonder how much of the rotateq vaccine she really gets down and if it's effective.

As for Dr. A's pediatric practice, the jury is still out. I like the cleanliness of the facilities and the separate well/sick waiting rooms. But the staff took their time, super slow and super laid back. Maybe it's a South TX thing, but at Drs. F&F, we were in and out effectively and efficiently with barely any wait, plus the staff was always bustling with activity. At Dr. A's, not only were we there from 9:30am till 12 noon, with about an hour wait in each room (waiting room & examination room), but it seemed like forever between each sighting of medical personnel. We only met with the nurse that took the stats, later gave the shots, and then the Nurse Practitioner who did the physical. Upon leaving, I asked the receptionist if it normally took this long, and she said Mondays and Fridays are busier than normal. We rescheduled for the 9-month checkup on a Tuesday when Dr. A is present and hopefully when it's less busy and less of a wait.

Happy 6 months Hannah!

Hannah is 6 months old today. She has her 6-month checkup at 9:30am with her new pediatrician, Dr. A, referred to us by our realtor. Hopefully we like Dr. A. We'll find out her stats, how much she weighs, and how long she is. I'm excited to know! And she also gets her shots :( probably not so fun.

She's started to sleep through the night more. She slept a whole 8-hours without waking at A-ma & A-gong's this past week, and last night (2nd night back at home) she went a 7-hr stretch. Yay! When she sleeps without waking or needing to feed, I am a much happier mommy the next day because that means I've gotten more sleep.

E.C. or Elimination Communication

We started E.C. the day after we brought her home from the hospital. My mom was with us, and she held Hannah over the plastic container from the hospital, whistled, and Hannah actually peed into the bucket. We were all extremely excited. I tried it a couple of hours later. I held Hannah, whistled, and she peed again. I was estatic! DH tried it a few days later. We continued this Pavlovian conditioning and were careful not to whistle at other times since DH likes to whistle.

Hannah seemed to learn. We still left her in a diaper, but tried our best to take off the diaper and give her a chance to pee and poo. We especially tried to catch poops when she started to show signs (red nose, grunting, vocalization, squirming). Catching every pee was rather difficult since the signs were not as apparent (sometimes vocalization & squirming).

I had read about E.C. during 1st trimester during my online research. I told DH and my mom about it. My mom told me that they had "E.C.ed" with me (using the principles) during potty training at a much later age than Hannah, but not as newborn. I was cloth diapered and "E.C.ed." DH was potty trained around 18 months since he was the youngest of 5 kids, and the next child up was 15 months older. Reading proponents of E.C., some babies have gone diaper-free since 3 months or even birth. Hannah is not a diaper-free baby yet. We've used a combination of disposables, cloth, and taking her to the toilet.

We don't necessarily expect Hannah to be potty trained any younger than about a year, but it makes sense to not "train" kids to dirty themselves while in a diaper, and then have to "retrain" them to eliminate in the toilet, when it's been okay for them to mess themselves the whole time. We support training children to eliminate in the toilet from the get go. It just makes sense to us not to send conflicting communication to kids. It is especially nice when we don't have to clean up messy poops in the diaper or any blowouts onto clothes. It has also been nice because it has cut down on the amount of diapers we go through.

Since our move to the townhome, Hannah started establishing more of a routine (around 4 months), and she elminates her poop when I take her to the toilet 1st thing upon her waking up. We also started on cloth diapers as backup while we are at home in the day. With E.C., it's been nice since she does not poop in the cloth diaper, hence no poop to wash. She still sometimes pees in the cloth diaper. While we are out and about, it's not as convenient to do E.C., so we just put her in a disposable diaper. Hannah also wears a disposable at night (and when I'm tired or busy & don't want to spend the time to take her to the toilet). DH is committed to the concept of E.C. and even more vigilant than me because he wants to reduce diapering costs. Overall so far, we've spent maybe around $100 on diapers ($12 on a 12-pack of cloth diapers, and the rest on disposables). I think that's pretty good for 6 months.

Welcome!

Welcome to Hannah's blog!

After setting this up at around the time she was 2-3 months and doing nothing on it (we were moving etc.), I figured we should start posting to this blog, since she's almost 6 months old (as of tomorrow). It's a nice milestone to start documenting.

So much has happened the last 6 months. She's grown up a lot! Our family has had lots of changes, travelling, moving etc. She's grown like a weed. Born at out around 6 lbs, she's now probably close to 20 lbs. We'll find out tomorrow how much she really weighs! She's learned to hold up her head, stand, sit up, roll, jump in her jumparoo, vocalize for attention, pee & poo over the potty (we're doing EC), and swallow semi-solid food.

I'll probably post something that documents her growth...but for now... YAY! The inaugural post!